rob86

There are a couple things you can try. You could try searching Google to see if others have had this problem with Sony Handycams. You might get a solution that's specific to your camera, the model number might be on it somewhere.You could try different media players. Sometimes if I watch a video, downloaded or recorded off the T.V. one media player will play it perfectly, but the audio will be out of sync. Try VLC Media player and Media Player Classic. With this dynamic duo, I can play almost anything on Windows. Another thing you can try is this. If your search on Google failed to find any information on what you need to do, you can download the oddly named free program called Gspot on the internet. It's a simple program that when installed lets you right click on your video file, and get more information on what kind of codec it uses. It might say something like "Codec: Superduper Sony Codec". You could then search on google for a place to install that codec, or tell us what it says here for more help. It is surprising that the camera didn't come with software to make sure everything works out of the box, did you install everything? Maybe you can download something on the Sony site. If all else fails, you could record a short clip and upload it here and maybe someone can figure out what you need to view it.

I'm thinking the problem was with Windows power saving sleep mode. I haven't tested it yet, but auto-sleep mysteriously became enabled for 15 minutes of inactivity. I have strong hopes this will fix it.

I`ve been having a strange problem lately that only started occuring in the last week or so. I'm running Win7 with a D-Link router. I use lots of software that uses the network, for example MSN, a locally accessed FTP server, internet downloads. Recently, I've noticed that for some reason, when my computer is idle, everything just 'dies'. MSN disconnects, my local FTP server dies (so it's nothing to do with ISP) and I have to restart it manually, my downloads fail. As soon as I return to the PC, move the mouse (to turn on the monitor) everything connects again. I haven't done a whole lot of troubleshooting on the problem yet, but has anyone experienced anything similar? Like I said it only started doing this recently. I'm not 100% sure it only disconnects when the computer is idle, but it seems to be the case because I rarely, if ever experience disconnects while I'm using it. By idle, I mean in as little as an hour or less. I haven't actually timed it.I can think of one thing I did recently, and that was push the reset button on the router. Is there some kind of a IDLE-DISCONNECT feature on the router I'm missing that turned itself on?I'm going to do some more testing to see if my second computer on the network running Ubuntu has these problems to narrow it down to Windows or the Router, but if anyone has any suggestions.. it's a really annoying problem because I need the FTP server to work.

I finished this game (first play through) recently. Here's my opinion of it.I was impressed by the cinematic quality of the game from the first few minutes, it was neat having movie-like scenes involving my characters. It really got me in to the story. Your dialogue choices with other characters are significant, and can change the game. Other times the dialog choices are irrelevant (Main Quest stuff) while other times, they don't make a lot of sense and the choice isn't much of a choice. For example, why kill a potential party member when their presence can only be beneficial? In general though, it feels like your dialogue choices usually have some importance. The negative side of all the cinematics, is that sometimes they can get a little boring depending on what genre of game you're into. Sometimes it can take quite a few minutes to listen to all the dialogue, and you'll want to, because the voice acting is well done and i t's a shame to just skip it. However, if you have problems paying attention and not being able to walk around Half-Life style to someone talking it can slow things down. This isn`t really a problem with the game, because I think most in the RPG genre are like this. Combat in the game is kind of different. I wouldn`t personally describe it as RTS style, more like minimal Real Based Tactical with Pause. You have a party of 4 characters, and in a general battle, you pause the game, maneuver your units, unpause, repeat. You can also set up automated programmable tactics such as ``IF HEALTH BELOW 25%, USE HEALTH POTION` or `-IF SURROUNDED..USE SPECIAL ATTACK`` It`s not a bad system and is quite fun to use. It`s not really so tactical like a war game, basically all you can do is flank (attack the enemy`s back side) which later in the game, I didn?t even bother. So mostly my game consisted of making my party stand still, casting some spells, make my party attack (no tactics) and finish the battle. I wouldn't call combat a main draw of the game for sure, but it does fit well in the game if you don't expect a tactical war game. The problem with combat in the game, is that it can be either extremely easy, or frustratingly difficult. I suppose your choice in party members can determine your enjoyment of the game, which is why if you google some people say -TOO HARD- and others say -TOO EASY-. I first concentrated on using warriors, which was very hard and I spent a lot of time pausing and flanking. I couldn?t understand why the game was so darn hard. As soon as I leveled up my mage, I had some seriously overpowered spells which literally let me complete the rest of the game with ease, hardly even using my three other party members including My character, not counting a few overly difficult parts. So I think the more mages you have, the easier the game will be, while not using mages at all will be very challenging, if not impossible for the average person on their first play.One thing that was nice about the game, is that it wasnt overwhelming. I never felt that the game was too much for a person who isn?t really into RPGs. There wasnt a whole lot of exploring random areas. You basically travel automatically from one area to another with random encounters. This might not be as vast as ES: Oblivion, but its a lot less intimidating to someone. I know I found the traveling in ES series not really my thing, and preferred to get straight to the point. The graphics in the game are good, nothing to complain about for sure. You can go Diablo-RTS style where you can see the whole area to control things, or FPS style to explore. Its cool seeing the same stuff in two different perspectives, but you?ll find yourself using the -RTS- mode most of the time, because it'd be near impossible to do any combat zoomed in. They might not be as fancy as modern FPS graphics, but who cares. Minor bugs with the graphics sometimes made controlling the characters hard, but they arent frequent and you can live with them. Specifically when an enemy is on another level (up stairs), no zoom mode can even see them to cast a spell on them.The game is definitely worth buying, it's a good story with an engrossing atmosphere. You don't have to be an RPG fan to enjoy it, it's quite playable for everyone who likes a nice relaxing game. I enjoyed it.

I don't object to a non-english word being in the domain, in fact it'd be kind of interesting for a change, but I dare say that at least most English speakers are going to relate that particular one to the sexual parts of 'Kama Sutra' which is really not what you want people to think the site is about. I don't think too many people in my part of the world at least are aware that the word Sutra even means anything outside of "Exotic Sex Tips!". Just looking on google for Sutra shows a bunch of sex positions, despite what your harmless definition would imply. That's what will show up when people search for the site. Might scare some people away..

I have problems with dry skin on my hands and face, especially on my hands when they crack in the winter, it can be quite painful. I'll definitely try out the olive oil moisturizer treatment. I've tried quite a few moisturizers so I'll let you know how it works for me. It's an interesting treatment, thanks for sharing.

The dramatic topic title isn't my opinion, this was the general idea of an outrageous opinion piece I read in our local newspaper today. I couldn't believe it was even written, let alone published. Someone wrote in and said (I'm paraphrasing here not directly quoting, but it's pretty close and I kept the important words the same): I found the opinion of this person very disturbing. Can you believe it? Because some Athletes are 'praying' to our olympic symbol, they're "impressionable" read: stupid people that God should have mercy on? How ridiculous is that? I highly doubt that the athletes are going to start sacrificing animals to win medals. I've played sports, and I've 'talked' to the ball in important moments, "Don't fail me now!" or whatever. Some people take stuff a little too seriously. Notice from BuffaloHelp: Use QUOTE bbcodes

This is some interesting news I saw on Yahoo. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ I think the article tries to be a bit dramatic in suggesting that brain damage is the cause for religious belief, but I could understand that the brain in general has a lot to do with how strong of a believer someone is. What does everyone think of this? As a non-believer, even when giving religion a chance, I have a hard time understanding why religious people believe the things the do, so maybe the key is in the brain.

I'm kind of losing enthusiasm to post here for a few reasons, one because I got distracted from my web design hobby because of the Christmas season and never got back into it, so I don't post for $$. Another reason is that I can't count the number of times I replied to someone's thread who didn't even acknowledge that they read my reply, or sometimes they just disappear. I'm admittedly guilty of this too, maybe we're too busy or something. Sometimes I plan to write a real reply and wait until I have time, and totally forget about it. I can't help but get the feeling that most of my posts aren't really read, so I don't feel much like posting and the quality of my posts gets less. Why bother writing a nice reply to someone who's just going to be a one post wonder and leave the forum? People leave after their first post more often than stay, from what I can tell. Even some threads from the mods and only get a few replies, if any. I think that's why they don't start too many threads. I could post the same posts on another forum and get pages of replies. Seems like the only threads that get very many posts these days are either 1) Ancient 2) "What's Your Favourite" Polls 3) Arguments (like people fighting over religion) 4) Tech support questions. Nothing 'wrong' with posts like that, but they don't capture my interest unless it's a question I can answer that isn't already solved.There are a lot of 'regulars' leaving too, like Simpleton and Namelesss who I replied to on a few occasions. They used to post a dozen things every day, now they disappeared off the face of the earth. Maybe they're busy or just bored of the forum, but it sure is less active since they went quiet. Their posting enthusiasm added something to the forum anyway. Watermonkey? I had no idea who that was I just know he left in an overly dramatic way. I don't remember a single post from him.

There are tons of beginner lessons on the internet to get you started, and tons of areas to start learning. The most important thing is to be in tune, if you don't have a tuner get one they are 100% essential and cheap. If you like rock or punk music, you can check out what are called Power Chords which are easier to play than chords and are used in rock music, however don't get lazy and neglect everything else (like Open Chords, the A, G, E things) just because you can play some easy rock songs. It's a little bit motivating to actually play some real music though and this is your fastest way to do it. You can play power chords on acoustic, but they sound best on electric guitar.As for chords in general, they just take a lot of practice. They seem impossible at first, but your fingers will stretch and become more flexible and it will become second nature. Just stick with it and practice. Your fingers will most likely get sore and develop hard callouses if they aren't you aren't practicing enough. Kind of rushed for time right now, but I have lots of guitar information to share so it's hard to be too informative, just post again if you have more questions.And yes, Guitar playing definitely takes effort. Don't be discouraged.Maybe give some more information about what you're trying to learn.. acoustic? electric? rock songs? new rock? classic rock? country? electric blues? acoustic blues? What are your goals, casual camp fire folk singer or Guitar God?

I wasn't a fan of him until a few years ago, what I like most about his movies is that they are very much like the old slapstick comedy of the three stooges combined with amazing stunts. It was his stuff that introduced me to Chinese films in general, which seem to be the kind of thing I like. Silly fast paced comedy. His HK films are usually low on plot and high on action and silliness. You really have to watch his chinese films to see why he's so famous world wide (without english dubs.. it's too weird to hear a bunch of chinese guys yelling at eachother in deep british accents). His stunts are really impressive in his early days, when he was trying to make a name for himself.If you really like Jackie Chan Zagubadu, you should watch his older films and check out some films by Sammo Hung too.. he's a legend of a director and actor. Once you get past the whole reading subtitle thing, you can enjoy the movie. There's something I noticed about the subs in chinese movies, the characters often say "Bad!" which seems to be a nice way to say "SH!T!" or something, but it's really weird when they're like - "Bad! My arm is cut off!" "Bad, we're dying!" The weird translations kind of add to the charm though..Some of Jackie Chan's best movies are Drunken Master 2 (and 1 but 2 is popular), the Police Story series, Winners and Sinners, Armor of God, well heck, there's a whole lot of them. The Rush Hour series is way down in the favourite list for me. It was probably the film that introduced me to him, and I liked it at the time, but it doesn`t compare to others. Films to avoid (unless you insist on seeing every film) are Rob B Hood and ARound the world in 80 days. Rob B Hood is one of those `Tough guy takes care of lost baby`stories and Around the World is a lame re-make of the classic. Both are ten times better than Spy Next Door though.

Wow. I can't believe how bad this movie (Spy Next Door) was. Jackie Chan is one of my favourite actors and I've seen almost every movie he's been in and Spy Next Door could definitely be the worst by far. I can't see how this movie could be good on any level. It's a family movie, but that doesn't mean it has to be completely lame. I don't think there was anything memorable worth repeating, except Chan saying Frankenstein when he tries on masks and the woman looking at him like he's an idiot. It's not that funny, but it's better than the rest of the film which is complete garbage. This is the first time I ever saw Billie Ray Cyrus act in a movie, and I hope it's the last. Is the only reason he is an actor because his daughter is a star? Embarassingly bad movie, that's about the only way I can sum this up. I can't imagine what Chan did to deserve his last years of acting to be so anti-climactic. He starred in so many popular movies, he's an international superstar loaded with talent, and he's starring in trash like this. Most of the American films he stars in are below the high standards he set in HK but they're at least somewhat entertaining. I don't know what Jackie Chan is thinking when he agrees to make movies like this. I guess he's probably thinking about money! He used to do death defying stunts and get paid a fraction of what he does in the US. Surely, there must be some role for him that's worthy of such a legendary star though. He's capable of drama (barely) but I don't think Americans know how to direct him or something. A side note, Jackie Chan is doing a musical about his life. He sure is an experimental guy, you gotta give him that.

I want to try out another distro (OpenSuse, I guess for no particular reason), I already have Ubuntu and WinXP installed. if I install a second Linux Distro, will it just show up in the grub boot menu or will it take over and cause a lot of headaches?

Master Bani I am at one with the sticks, I feel the force. Seriously though, I figured out the whole finger flicking thing. I was doing it wrong before but now it seems to make more sense. I guess I was just trying too hard before because when I just relaxed and played along to the radio (and some fast songs) my fingers just starting flicking to keep up and it became pretty obvious it's a lot easier to understand than it sounds. Now that I'm conscious of the bounce, I can control it more and and my playing improved quite a bit. My right hand is naturally doing great, it's got the whole loose grip - no bounce suffocation thing sorted out, but my left hand needs a lot more work. Not surprisingly, as I've been too lazy to do much serious rudiment practicing yet. I can still play stuff, but my left hand is sloppier and weak when I slow down or do rolls. I've been playing some jazzy shuffle stuff a lot. Since I play a lot of blues guitar, the whole shuffle beat came pretty easy. I'll download that Art Blakey song and try it out. Jazz songs are pretty fun to play to. Sometimes they're kind of difficult for me, since I don't really know what I'm supposed to be playing but I like how the drums are a bit more busy in a way that's not just noise. I like banging on cymbals as much as anyone, but jazz seems more musical.I'm a big fan of old roots reggae (well, a long with a dozen other genres) so it'd be interesting to learn about the drumming for that style. Looks like I might finally figure out what "One Drop" is supposed to mean. Irie, mon. I'll definitely look into the latin styles even though like you I don't listen to much latin music. Santana's pretty good though. I like his guitar playing, guess I'll have to pay attention to his percussionists now. There are a couple of funk tracks on my drum kit, and one of them I really had fun playing to. It was one of my favourites, surprisingly. I've hardly ever listened to funk music before but it was cool improvising some funky beats to go with it.

Another game that went downhill is the Rainbow Six series. Ravenshield used to be one of my favourite FPS because of the tactics and strategy involved, I would often plan the mission and let the AI carry it out to see if my plan was good. I got a surprising amount of replay value out of that FPS compared to say Half-Life which has an interesting campaign but when it's done, it's done. I don't play campaigns more than once in most games. I tried RainbowSix Vegas and while not a bad game, it really dumbed down the series to appeal to the masses (the people who make it admitted they took out the more complex bits to make the game more accessible to FPS gamers) by reducing your team to 3 instead of 12 and getting rid of the planning phase. You can't even set up snipers to cover you from a distance on outdoor maps, that was one of the coolest parts of the RS series, to have a team, not just two buddies to open doors for you. Vegas is definitely tuned for multiplayer action, sadly leaving the singleplayer part lacking.There's a pretty decent 'strategy' game called Dangerous Waters which is a naval combat simulation and isn't too bad really. It's _VERY_ slow paced, probably the slowest game I've ever seen when you're floating around in a submarine, but it makes the naval combat experience pretty realistic. Being in a submarine isn't about zipping around shooting things, it's about stealth. You can use submarines (the main part of the game), a destroyer, a helicopter or a plane in a realistic way.. looking at the consoles and locking in targets. I'm not a person who knows a lot about the navy, but I found the game enjoyable, surprisingly educational and it runs on older computers which is why I got it. You'll certainly earn respect for navymen when you see that running a sub is harder than it looks. I had to read a pretty thick manual (for a game) to understand all the terminology. It's not for everyone, but for people who like simulations it's good.

I love strategy games of all kinds, so I've played quite a few different ones, RTS, turn based, etc. I bought Company of Heroes because of the rave reviews it received, and it's a good game, but I can't help but notice that the fast paced action that gamers apparently want really ruins what is an otherwise excellent, realistic game. Like most RTS games out there, tactics go out the window and it becomes a click-fest. Everything about the actual gameplay is so unrealistic. An example is when two infantry squads engage in combat. Within seconds, the battle is over and everyone is dead, and attempting a flanking maneuver is a waste of time, because the firefights don't last long enough to do anything anyway. The game boasts things like like cover and pinning, but everything is moving so fast, you can hardly control anything. If you're lucky, you can retreat your squad, which runs away at lightning speed. Infantry also move so fast, it doesn't matter if they're halfway across the map, they'll run like robots and in 5 seconds they'll be there - full of energy - to reinforce their allies. It doesn't matter if my men die, they'll just be reinforced with my seemingly infinite amount of resources. Winning has nothing to do with how good of a tactician I am, winning depends almost entirely on how fast I can click.I know the game is meant to have an arcade-y style to it, but it's a shame that such a beautiful game couldn't be more strategic. If it was only slower paced, it would be an amazing game. I can't help but compare it to one of my favourite games, Close Combat. Close Combat was so much more interesting, because of it's realism. If CoH had CC's realism -- it would be incredible. Slow paced doesn't have to mean boring. Close Combat was never boring, I was always busy despite the slow pace, the difference being that I was busy THINKING, not clicking like a madman. Soldiers taking cover behind a wall, too terrified to lift their heads actually survive more than a few seconds until reinforcements arrive. Thinking about how to save my men who are pinned down in a building, thinking about how to ambush an almost indestructible tank (none of this infinite mine or rocket launcher business). Losing a single soldier is a significant loss. That's how a strategy (well tactical) game should be. So Company of Heroes isn't a bad game, it's quite good really, I simply dream of how much better it could have been.A side note, what's with all the swearing in CoH? It doesn't 'bother' me, sometimes it's realistic.. a mortar blowing up in my face would probably make anyone drop the f-bomb, but I can't help but find it a little strange that my soldiers are yelling "What the F*** do you want?" "Can't you see I'm F***ing busy?" at me every few minutes.. I'm their commander! Show some respect!

I'm trying to backup an entire HDD (160gb) to another external HDD (1TB) and in theory it should be simple, I certainly know how to copy files and folders, but it never seems to work. This drive is 100% windows stuff (No Ubuntu on there)My first attempt was installing an FTP server on Ubuntu, adding the 160GB drive's C: to it, and then trying to download the entire thing on Computer#2 to a drive. It appeared to be working fine, until it finished and the result was a backup of 11GB..obviously short of the ~150gb of files I have to backup.So then I tried hooking the external HDD up to the Computer#1 directly, and just dragging and dropping the drive from /media/ in Nautilus. Once again, it didn't do so well. I forget how much I got but it was far off.Then I tried what I thought was old faithful -- cp in the Ubuntu CLI. This did the best of all, I think maybe 50gb got transferred, but still..far from complete. Finally, I brought out what I thought was heavy artillery, a demo for some backup software. This worked the worst of all! It seemed to take forever to do anything and kept stalling.I don't get (m)any errors explaining why it's not working, most of my files just get ignored.What's the deal with this? I have no problems copying files, it's normally a task even a newbie could do. Smaller bunches of files can be backup-ed easily, but when I do the whole drive it doesn't work. I was using Ubuntu because I was trying to avoid the whole "Windows files in use" stuff that might cause some problems.

I imagine it would be more cost and time efficient to use virtual instruments, but it depends what you really want to get out of it. I've done songs with virtual instruments and I own FL Studio, and it's so easy to make a professional sounding song with no talent that it feels almost like cheating and I don't think very highly of my digitally made music because of that. I also own a Keyboard and even though it's MUCH easier to do keyboards on a computer (with better sound than my not-professional gear), it still feels "wrong" to me. I feel like it's not really my skill that's making the music.It depends on the instruments you're using also. String instruments like guitar for example are pretty hard to emulate realistically, but pianos sound pretty real.It depends on the style of music as well. For example, modern pop rock is often mixed to sound 'fake' with lots of compression (it evens out the sound, makes it sound more 'professional' and cd quality -- but the con is that you lose a lot of dynamics that make playing unique-- this is why most radio music sounds the same). In other music like jazz, classical, indian classical, classic blues, compressing the sounds would be blasphemy and you'd be shunned from society for even thinking about it. So for a pop rock song, or an electro song, or hip hop song, you could pretty easily make it sound good, but if you're really into the complexities of sound and music, there's no way you could pass virtual for real.So I guess in my opinion it boils down to what you want to do. Some people are impressed by simple rap or pop music, others have a deeper interest in music theory, instrument technique, etc and wouldn't think too highly of most virtual music. I love playing instruments, I love holding them, and hearing the real live sounds I'm making. I have a real appreciation for musicians of any style who play an instrument, and a real lack of appreciation for techno, pop, rap that is all made on a computer. You can make great sounding songs with virtual instruments, dependent on the style of music of course. If producing an end product is your sole goal, then go virtual. You might even become a skilled composer and have an orchestra or something. If you want to learn an instrument because it interests you, you'll find it a thousand times more enjoyable to play a real life instrument, even if it takes you years to make decent music.

I did it the easy way -- install a FTP server on both computers. I didn't know each computer got it's own local IP so file sending is ultra-fast.. I'm a newb with networks. I can transfer files without the hassle of file sharing. File sharing looked inconvenient anyway, I'm glad FTP works!

I found Avatar to be about mediocre. It's not as brain-dead as the recent Transformers movies, but it still reeks of one of those big budget crowd pleasing movies with a boring story and lots of exciting visuals.The movie looked great, the world of Pandora was interesting but for some reason failed to capture my imagination and awe like other movies. The introductions to the different flora and fauna were neat -- the plants seemed quite unique, but nothing left a lasting impression on me. Why? I don't know, maybe it was because it was in the context of a stupid and unoriginal story. Avatar often comes off as political propaganda almost as much as it attempts to be a flashy movies. The US Marines were one dimensional, meat heads who have no brain or heart. The US (or RDA) want to obtain a resource and will kill any living thing to obtain it. The script throws in a few things like crude scientist insults and Marine heroes, doubtful facial expressions, in an attempt to smooth out the more than obvious messages Cameron is trying to show us. It's not whether J.C.'s message was agreeable or not, it's that like a spice that's over-used, it become so overpowering that the fictional world of Pandora starting to seem less believable and engrossing and more like some Michael Moore documentary with blue people. The other characters didn't fare so well in the personality department either. Sigourney Weaver's character was interesting, I admired her love for nature and knowledge above all -- but that's basically her entire personality. Basically Marines = Morons , Colonol = Super @$$hole, Scientists = Not at all memorable heroes. Aside from the female star, the Na'Vi were pretty devoid of personality. I think that's a lot of the reason why I seemed so indifferent to their suffering. They were described as "monkeys" and "roaches" and to be quite honest, that's kind of the impression I got from the movie. The female was intelligent, brave, and loved her people and was a interesting, if unoriginal character. The others didn't do a whole lot more than swing from trees and ride horseback. I was more concerned about those cool plants Sulley touches near the beginning!So in conclusion, the movie was an enjoyable if forgettable watch almost entirely due to the visuals (futuristic war machines, beautiful nature) but the age-old story of a woman falling in love with a man who's race wants to kill her race was done a lot better before. The not so subtle political messages detracted from the experience. Some people are saying it's this generation's Star Wars with it's engrossing Pandora universe and in my opinion, it's not even close.

There are a lot of similarities between the Bible and other stories. In the Atra-Hasis epic there is a God who causes a massive flood, another God (the kind one) tells the hero to build a big boat out of his house to the God's specifications, load up his animals and family to escape and save humanity. The flood stops after seven days, and after an argument, the Gods decide that flooding wasn't the nicest way to take care of humans and never did it again. Sound familiar?

Teaching or training a dog isn't overly hard, the challenge is you have to be very dedicated and patient. People commonly use what they call desensitization to help animals, for example, if your dog is scared of thunder, you might have to get an audio track online of some thunder sound effects, and play them at very, very low volumes, while slowly increasing the volume every day. You have to be really patient, REALLY patient, because if you advance too fast, you could scare him and have to revert back to the beginning. I'm not sure how this works with thunder, but since i don't believe in rain dances, I think it's the best option you've got. When you try to desensitize an animal to something, you don't want to comfort them too much like "Awww, come on pup, you'll be okay, it's just rain and thunder!" you want to seem as.. normal as possible. You don't want to keep 'telling' them that something weird is going on. A lot of people believe dogs can sense what you're feeling, your calmness for example, but they might misinterpret it. Like if your dog is barking at another dog, you don't want to keep telling him to shut up -- he might think you're barking with him. I think you should pretend not to notice the barking, just continue your walk or play session to distract him, but quietly. Some dogs just don't like rain though, my dog won't use the bathroom in the rain eihter, he's not overly scared of it, he just doesn't like it. He'll go out and walk in the rain, but he doesn't like to go out and just poo in a puddle. Sometimes dogs have funny bathroom habits too. Some dogs just don't like to crap everywhere. My dog for example always tries to find a spot that's kind of out of the way. He never goes in the middle of a road or something, he goes off in a ditch. He also doesn't like peeing in the middle of nowhere, he usually likes some kind of an object to pee on like a tree or rock. I never trained him to have such nice manners and avoid using the bathroom in walking areas, he just did it himself. So maybe try walking him around some bushes or something. As for him not returning when you call -- well... that's about every dog on the planet. I used to be really into training my dog, and studied animal psychology and everything, and he still doesn't come when I call reliably -- simply because I was too lazy and impatient. If you're serious about training him a 'recall' then you pick a word that he doesn't know. So not "come here!" but something like, 'return!' or something, or even a word in another language. Then, you have to train him to obey the word while always having him on a long leash, and force him to return by pulling on the leash EVERY time and if he does return ..always reward him. When he gets 'good', NEVER let him get away with not returning when you call, EVER -- which means, don't tell him to return to you every 5 minutes or you'll have a lot of enforcing to do. You don't want them to know that not returning is even a possibility. For something as important as a reliable recall, I think you really have to keep training them their entire life. People train dogs in different places around different distractions (park, lawn, someones house, butcher shop.. ) and very rarely expect perfection, just a high percentage of successes. Your dog may come when called in the house, or in yoru lawn, but anywhere else.. he won't. You have to re train them in almost every situation! A lot of work, I know! I forget what they say is an 'optimum' success rate, but I do know they don't expect 100%. -- except for coming when called. I mean you see those dogs on tv performing to perfection, but that's not the real world, just what they're trained to be used to.You can desensitize him to the objects the same way as above, just slowly introduce objects to him. Just have treats around or make the object be a play toy, he'll eventually get used to it.. just take it slow and don't push him so far. If he's terrified and shaking in a corner, don't run at him with the object and say 'it's nothing, calm down!' just try again slower later, maybe a smaller object or something. you didn't really specify what kind of an object. Look into what they call 'clicker' training which is a form of positive reinforcement animal training. It's not just some hippy wimps method of training -- it's really effective. I taught my dog some things with this method and he caught on almost instantly with this method. You _can_ use it for training reliable things -- look at all the athletic competition dogs that are 'positively' trained -- it was also used to train animals during the war, but it really excels for fun tricks. Dogs really, really enjoy clicker training. They seem to understand it more clearly than just words and when they understand, the success makes them feel good. Dogs don't like to be confused and get frustrated like people. So really, training a dog isn't some impossible task for only wolf-men like Cesar.. but it takes time and patience. This is mostly why dedicated trainers and behaviorists seem so effective, they're getting paid to be dedicated and patient. It's hard to be patient with your own dog , I know!

Sharing _from_ Ubuntu to Windows was very easy. I got that working no effort at all, but I can't see shared files on Ubuntu. In Windows 7, I click a folder and share it - I pick homegroup, but I don't know if that's right. I don't see anything in Ubuntu about my Windows shared files. I looked in (nautilus) network and see "Windows Network" but when I click on it, it's empty. Windows 7 is using "WORKGROUP" and Samba I think is configured to use WORKGROUP as well. I can find lots of tutorials for sharing from Ubuntu to Windows, but none the other way around?

I'll try it tomorrow, what about Windows 7 and Ubuntu? That's what I'm using on one computer. I thought I read about Ubuntu sharing with Windows, but I don't know for sure. Samba, or something?